Daily Tech News 21 December 2024
—Pixy Misa
Top Story- Here's a list of the 49 American AI startups that have raised $100 million or more in 2024. (Tech Crunch)
Top among them is OpenAI, which raised $6.6 billion this year, but close behind is Elon Musk's xAI, which raised $6 billion.
Interestingly Europe didn't miss the boat with Mistral leading the table there with $1.2 billion raised.
What all that money will achieve I don't know.
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Just The ONT, Ma'am
—WeirdDave
Hi Horde! Friday night, what's everyone up to? Time to get silly.
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Giant Animals Cafe
—Ace
Big Jake, one of the World's largest horses during his time
That's no king cobra, it's a Kong cobra:
More big critters in the thread.
Cat has opinions on whether or not it's time to wake up.
Dog has opinions on whether your being five minutes late to give him dinner is acceptable or not.
Blowing bubbles in freezing air. It's a little more interesting than you might think.
Gotta keep your eye out for these rapacious Scandis.
Baby racoon wants to be involved.
Owls have +12 to stealth checks.
Some people just don't like hearing Christmas songs 24/7.
Happy reindeer is limbering up for his big night!
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Quick Hits
—Ace
Why do they always look like this?
There is an answer, of course: because radical, revolutionary politics, which promises to bring down society's winners and replace them with society's losers, are naturally favored by society's losers.
#SorryNotSorry but that's the truth. Marxism is a politics for the ugly, unwanted, uneducated, unhealthy, and insane.
Ryan Saavedra
@RealSaavedraReporters did not ask Karine Jean-Pierre a single question about The Wall Street Journal report from yesterday that outlined how the White House hid President Joe Biden's cognitive decline from the public.
The Democrats are holding disaster funds for (red states) Florida and North Carolina hostage, but don't worry, Biden's handlers just approved by their usurped kingly authority a $1 billion payment to Save Some Trees in Ecuador.
Top crime investigators are convinced the suspected UnitedHealthcare CEO shooter carried out the cold-blooded murderer with the help of an accomplice, DailyMail.com can reveal....
But two leaders in the investigative field who have analyzed the case have now told DailyMail.com that some key details are being ignored -- and that those clues point to at least one accomplice to the alleged murderer....
O'Shea says the coincidence of the shooter arriving within five minutes of Thompson emerging from his hotel, suspicious behavior by others on CCTV, and conflicting witness statements, all suggest the killer knew exactly when to pounce thanks to help from at least one other person.
A second industry leader in private intelligence for celebrities and CEOs spoke to DailyMail.com on condition of anonymity due to being close to the case.
This second top security expert also pointed to CCTV footage of the assassin talking on the phone to an as-yet-unidentified contact while walking to the Hilton Midtown 15 minutes before the murder took place.
These top PIs are asking: could that call have been from an accomplice monitoring the movements of the UnitedHealthcare CEO?
Further arguments about Mangione having an inside line here.
In an incredibly predictable fashion, Megan Rapinoe was a fan of Caitlin Clark's recent comments about how she has benefited from 'white privilege' throughout her life and basketball career. The former U.S. women's soccer standout didn't stop at simply applauding Clark's comment, however, Rapinoe also took a shot at conservatives in the process."I want to say I've earned every single thing, but as a white person, there is privilege," was the quote from Clark that lit the Internet ablaze after she was named Time's Athlete of the Year.
Rapinoe co-hosts the 'A Touch More' podcast with her partner, WNBA legend Sue Bird. The two discuss noteworthy topics in the sports world and offer the exact same opinion. Typically, that opinion involves tongue-in-cheek remarks insinuating how awful, racist and misogynistic the United States is as a country.
Clark, arguably the most popular female athlete in the world, talking about her white privilege was music to Bird and Rapinoe's ears. When race and sport intertwine, Rapinoe is like a kid in a candy store, and this instance was no different.
What also wasn't different was Rapinoe singling out conservatives in her response and then trying to articulate some sort of original thought, but instead suffering from a case of word vomit.
"I think what Caitlin did in her quotes, or in the article, was speak explicitly about her white privilege, like and that is what is receiving so much criticism or backlash, and like that is the lesson," the former NWSL star said. "So, you know, for conservative media coming at her now that obviously they're just showing their whole ass," Rapinoe said.
"If fans are upset about her saying that and just acknowledging what is true, I think that says a lot. But I think the more that you speak directly to it the clearer it becomes what your stance is, and then you can't be used in that way. It doesn't really leave your beliefs or your stance as a white player to any sort of interpretation."
It never stops.
At least one GOP Senator is working with pro-migration Democrats to draft a border bill for 2025, a report in Axios.com. detailed Thursday.Oklahoma Republican Markwayne Mullin told the outlet his "serious" project could replace the fast-track reconciliation bill that is now expected to massively fund border security and enforcement in early 2025.
"If we can do border separately -- without reconciliation -- then [President Donald Trump is] okay with" a single reconciliation bill for tax cuts, Mullin told Axios.
The details are "very secret," he said.
Several pro-migration Democratic Senators are working with Mullin. They include Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ), Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI), and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), according to Axios....
Kelly told Axios that the Mullin bill must include their version of "immigration reform." That is an establishment euphemism for amnesty, more legal migrants, and more federal support for migrants. "If there's willingness [by Mullin] to work in a bipartisan way to do some stuff, not only on border security, but on immigration reform, I think it would be great," Kelly told Axios.
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Democrat Strategist Ruy Texiera: The Public Gave the Democrats a Clear Message About Their Rejection of Identity Marxism, But the Democrats Don't Want to Listen
—Ace
In the wake of the Democrats' drubbing at the hands of Donald Trump and the GOP, you'd assume the party would be all-in on a fundamental rethink, starting with some serious soul-searching on how the party came to be so out of sync with the majority of America on key cultural questions.Questions like: Is America a "white supremacist" society? Is it racist to question levels of immigration? Are citing one's personal pronouns necessary? Is anyone who questions the differences between trans women from biological women a bigot who should be expunged from polite society? For each of these questions, the answer for the overwhelming majority of Americans is an obvious no. But in elite Democratic circles, it's a different story. For a party pondering its unpopularity, you might think that this gap would be a good place to start.
Well, if the six weeks since the election is anything to go by, you'd be wrong. Instead, much of the party is maneuvering to change as little as possible on the cultural front. Why? Because many of today's Democrats are culture denialists. That is, they do not consider cultural issues to be real issues. Instead, they see them as fictions, distractions, or expressions of bigotry that are to be opposed, not indulged.
Consider Greg Casar, the new chair of the powerful Congressional Progressive Caucus. In a recent interview with NBC News, Casar urged the Democrats to "re-emphasize core economic issues every time some of these cultural war issues are brought up." He said that "when we hear Republicans attacking queer Americans again, I think the progressive response needs to be that a trans person didn't deny your health insurance claim, a big corporation did--with Republican help." Casar said that "the Republican Party obsession" with culture war issues is "driven by Republicans' desire to distract voters and have them look away while Republicans pick their pocket."
Massachusetts Democratic representative Jim McGovern echoed Casar's thoughts recently with this rhetoric about Republicans: "They want to blame trans people? Guess what? Trans people aren't the ones raising people's grocery prices. Big corporations are." Republicans, he added, "want to blame immigrants. . . . Immigrants aren't the ones denying health insurance claims. . . . it's the billion-dollar insurance companies that do that."
Get it? These aren't real issues. They're just distractions ginned up by Republicans for nefarious political purposes. The logical conclusion of this argument is that Democrats don't need to actually change their position on any "culture war" issue. Instead, they just need to change the subject and talk about mustache-twirling corporate villains.
...
Or perhaps the real problem, some Democrats argue, is that the party hasn't communicated its wonderful positions adeptly and thoroughly enough. With the right spin, maybe their positions on everything, from the economy to transgender issues and immigration would be popular. This seems to be the view of the two leading candidates for chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC). Ken Martin, head of Minnesota's Democratic Party (technically its Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party), has a 10-point plan that calls for a "massive narrative and branding project." Ben Wikler, head of Wisconsin's Democratic Party, believes Democrats must "become the narrator" of their own brand.
This all seems reasonable enough but, cutting through the verbiage, nowhere do these candidates for the DNC chair concede the party's cultural vulnerabilities. When reading their pitches for the powerful post, it's as if those problems don't exist.
The outgoing DNC chair takes things even further. Since the election, Jaime Harrison has strenuously resisted the idea Democrats should abandon "identity politics," saying they represent how "people of color" see Democrats fighting for them.Invoking his status as a black man, he remarked: "That is my identity. . . . it is not politics. It is my life. And the people that I need in the party, that I need to stand up for me, have to recognize that. You cannot run away from that." In other words, Democrats should double down on so-called culture war issues like race and gender that are so off-putting to voters. This is a strange recommendation since, as Democrats have become ever more associated with identity politics, they have been doing ever more poorly among non-white voters, especially non-white working-class voters. Their advantage among the latter group has declined by more than half since 2012.
I was wondering when the Democrats would change course, and I decided it probably wouldn't be for another 8 years.
It took the Democrats 12 years of losing the White House to finally pretend to moderate. Bill Clinton was their fig-leaf of "moderation."
But it took three crushing losses in a row to even get there.
The Democrat Cult will keep doubling down until they lose twice more.
They're in such a (Satanic) religious fervor now, and they are so ruthless in attacking and shaming and cancelling any heretics who question current cult doctrine, that they might not ever be able to moderate. The entire party might just have to collapse and be replaced by an emergent alternate-liberal party.
Ed Morrissey writes that Democrat strategist James Carville, campaign director for the "moderate" Bill Clinton, is making a similar argument.
The Daily Caller:
"Anybody that questions the absolute, unquestionable benefits of transition surgery is going to be called this equivalent of being against civil rights or being against women having the right to vote ... somebody can fact-check me, it's banned in Nordic countries," Carville said. "I think the liberal Labor government of Britain just passed legislation on that question." ..."But you can't -- if you say the border, we should have had something different -- well, that makes you a racist. If you say that we should proceed with caution on this transition surgery ... then you're slammed. And the tyranny of the left is tyranny. And not only tyranny that it causes people grief, it loses us elections, people," Carville said. "And I got to tell you ... there are people that think this, and I'm increasingly agreeing with them."
"There are a substantial number of people in the Democratic Party -- almost exclusively coastal, almost exclusively white, almost exclusively higher-educated -- that would rather lose and feel superior about themselves than have to go through the trouble to do the stuff it takes necessary to win an election," he continued. "And as long as that philosophy is part of the Democratic coalition, it is going to continue to cause unbelievable damage to our electoral prospects. I cannot say it any simpler than that."
Morrissey comments:
This formulation is pure Carville. He structures this argument so that it's less concerned about the actual tyranny than it is about the elections. If tyranny won elections, you get the sense that Carville might gripe a bit, but he'd also appreciate it from an electoral-strategy point of view.As it happens, though, tyranny turns out to be ... unpopular. In fact, that's it's defining characteristic. If these policies were popular, the Left wouldn't need to impose them with tyrannical methods, after all. Carville seems to miss that point in this rant, although to be fair, it's clipped from an obviously longer argument that Carville makes.
In fairness, you cannot tell these cultists that tyranny is bad, because they want the tyranny. This is what the revolution preaches: Tear down society until you can install yourself as dictators and impose your weird, sick vision of the anointed on the unwilling masses.
You can only make the argument that their tyranny will result in them giving the right the power to impose tyranny.
Morrissey acknowledges this as well:
Tyranny is both the strategy and the end goal.
Remember, though, "reporters" can't report on Biden's obvious senility until one of his top-raking aides/coup-conspirators admits he's senile:
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Kamala Harris To Be Offered $20 Million in a Media Payoff Disguised as an "Advance" on Book Royalties
Plus: Media Makes Excuses for Covering Up Biden's Obvious Senility
—Ace
At Victory Girls, as reported by the Daily Mail, another corrupt media company will offer Kamala Harris a $20 million bribe in the form of a "book advance" for royalties they know she'll never, ever earn.
Kamala Harris, who bizarrely blew through a record $1.5billion on her failed presidential campaign, may soon earn some big-bucks payback.Top publishers, DailyMail.com has learned exclusively, are willing to pay the soon-to-be former vice president and twice-failed Democratic presidential hopeful a whopping advance of as much as $20million for an inside look at President Joe Biden's, 82, White House and presidential campaign tell-all.
According to a Kamala insider: 'Virtually the moment Kamala lost to Trump, the offers began pouring in from the publishing world for her to do the definitive book on what really went on between Joe and Kamala -- what went right and what went wrong -- inside the Oval Office walls, and all the ups and downs of her campaign.
'They are throwing around advance numbers in the $20million range, maybe more with other publishing rights.'
...
A prominent executive at one of New York's top liberal-leaning publishing houses told DailyMail.com: 'More than anyone in the Biden White House, Kamala as the number two, and then as Joe Biden's campaign successor after he dropped out of the race, knows all the secrets, knows where all the skeletons are buried.
'She was there from the beginning of the administration and participated in all the presidential decisions, right or wrong. She's the one who can tell the consummate story.
Sure, sure. She'll "tell all." Sure.
These outsized "advances" for leftwing politicians are simply bribes. An advance is just the royalties you would collect in the future, but paid in advance. It's literally an advance on expected future royalties.
But no one, and I mean no one, expects Kamala Harris's book to earn $20 million in royalties. She'd make about 10% per book in royalties, so a $20 book would earn her $2. She'd have to sell ten million books to make $20 million royalty.
She won't. She'll struggle to make a one million dollar royalty.
This is not a payment, this is a pay-off. Remember, she still intends to run for office. There is no way to pay off a politician legally for future favors -- except through these corrupt "book deal" payoff operations.
All politicians should be required to only take real royalties for their book deals. No "advances" which are completely divorced from reality. They can earn for their books, but they should earn what they actually earn, not what a multibillion dollar media conglomerate with business before the government thinks they might be worth as a paid operative.
Unrelated: Former CNN Thumb Chris Cillizza admits he is a weakling and coward who can easily be bullied by more aggressive people. That's why, he says, he refused to report on Biden's obvious mental decline.
The White House worked to make him "feel bad" about any reporting on this, the admitted beta male follower cuck says to excuse himself of responsibility.
"Republicans would regularly ping me and say 'Why don't you ask more questions about Joe Biden and how he's doing? He's 76, 77, 78-year-old man,'" Cillizza said. He continued, "And I would sort of brush them off because what I would say is 'Well, there's no obvious evidence that he's declining. He moves a little slower. He talks a little slower but there's no evidence that he's declining.'"And the White House and the people around Joe Biden were absolutely adamant that suggesting anything...asking the question about whether he was in some physical, mental or both decline was offensive. 'How could you?! It's age shaming.' And I think impacted me at some level. Because while I did ask the question from time to time...I didn't really push on it if I'm being honest."
A bit later he returned to this adding, "There was a shame factor that went into that. People around Biden worked to make you feel bad when you asked whether he was up to the job of being president, running for president again and serving for another four years...And they did a very good job, until they couldn't any more, of hiding it."
Two points here. First, I guarantee you that there are 50 or 100 other DC reporters who could all tell this same story. All of them were cowed by the White House for years. That's obvious in retrospect. Few wanted to risk their access to the exclusive club by stating what was increasingly evident to everyone. That was especially true given that the right had taken up the issue. No media person wants to agree with them. It's career suicide to take anything the right says seriously.
More at Sexton's article. He points out that Cillizza says that the Trump debate showed everyone that Biden had "good days and bad days," but Sexton wants to know: What "bad days" did Biden have that we didn't see on video? Did he have a "bad day" when he sleepwalked through the Afghanistan bug-out debacle, for example?
We'll never know, because reporters never bothered themselves about it. They just kept repeating the mantra that when the cameras were not running, Joe Biden was performing Chinese Kung Fu Human Pyramid Attacks like he was one of the Five Deadly Venoms.*
Scott Adams made the point that Cillizza pretends that the only reportage he could do was asking questions of the White House staff. Because the White House staff would not admit Biden's obvious senility, he could do no stories about it.
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AGAIN: A Car Plows Through a German Christmas Market at a Very High Speed, Sending People Flying Like Bowling Pins, Killing an Unknown Number
—Ace
Again.
This happens every year.
I know how to stop it -- ban the AfD! Stop them from spreading their Nazi rhetoric about unassimilatable hostile foreigners waging a guerilla warfare campaign against the native population and making life unlivable!
Whatever you do, don't ask any questions about immigration!
Collin Rugg @CollinRuggJUST IN: At least one car plows through a large crowd of people at a Christmas market in Magdeburg, Germany.
The driver of the car was arrested.
Local reports say that many people are injured. It's unclear how many have d*ed.
"A vehicle drove through the Christmas market despite security measures and ran over several visitors," a local report says.
"Extensive police operations are currently taking place at the Magdeburg Christmas market. The Christmas market in the city centre is closed. Further reports will be made," Magdeburg Police said on X.
Paul A. Szypula @Bubblebathgirl11 people reportedly k*ll*d and at least 60 injured in Magdeburg, Germany when a car barreled through a Christmas market.
The car didn’t appear to slow down at all or avoid people.
Investigations ongoing, but you can draw your own conclusions.
Videos in a thread here. Watching human beings getting blasted to smitherines by a high-speed truck is repulsive so content warning.
This video is horrible.
Meanwhile, a 7-year-old girl was murdered by a crazed knife attacker in Croatia. Six other people were wounded.
"I wonder who the culprit will turn out to be" asked literally nobody because we all know.
A knife attack at a school in Croatia's capital left a 7-year-old girl dead and a teacher and five other students wounded, police said.Police described the attacker as a "young male" and said he had been detained.
State HRT television said the attacker entered the school and went straight into the first classroom he found and attacked the children.
ZAGREB, Croatia (AP) -- A knife-wielding teenager walked into a school in Croatia's capital Zagreb on Friday, killing a 7-year-old student and injuring three more children and a teacher, authorities said.
Authorities said the knife attack happened at 9:50 a.m. at the Precko Elementary School in the neighborhood of the same name. They described the attacker as a 19-year-old male and said he had been detained after inflicting injuries to himself.
Croatian Interior Minister Davor Bozinovic said one child died while three children and a teacher were injured.
Oh, a (touches nose) "young male." That's so specific, thank you for all of this very specific information.
Another "young male" (touches nose) was arrested for plotting a terror attack in America.
An 18-year-old Egyptian national, a freshman at George Mason University, was arrested in Falls Church, Virginia, on Tuesday for allegedly planning a terrorist attack against Israel's general consulate in New York.Abdullah Ezzeldin Taha Mohamed Hassan faces 20 years in federal prison if convicted of trying to teach someone how to manufacture an explosive with intent to murder internationally protected persons.
Prosecutors said that more charges may be forthcoming as the criminal investigation proceeds.
He currently is in deportation proceedings, something that will likely be put on hold until after he serves his prison sentence if he is convicted.
The Islamic extremist operated multiple social media channels that promoted pro-ISIS and Al Qaeda propaganda that promoted violence against Jews. He praised Osama bin Laden as his "idol," and he openly said that he was "praying for an ISIS" terrorist attack to happen at sporting venues.
Below: I'm shocked that this report says the culprit in the Madgeburg Christmas Market terror attack is a Syrian.
Just shocked. I never saw this coming, not even a little bit.
Note, I cannot confirm this picture is even from Madgeburg or even from tonight. I wouldn't post it, except for the FACT we all know, which is that governments conceal the identity of terrorists when they are Muslim "Newcomers," and we are left in the dark until they have prepared a hashtag public relations campaign like #YouCanRideWithMe to ease the public into accepting another completely-preventable terrorist catastrophe.
So I post this in defiance of corrupt Western governments and their anti-civilization media attack dogs: I will post whatever scraps of information I come across until you stop the embargo of any information that may embarrass your Welcome the Terrorists immigration agenda.
You don't want disinformation? Then start telling the public actual information.
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David Samuels: Barack Obama Created and Maintains an Echo Chamber Messaging System That Deranges and Perverts People's Thinking Every Day
—Ace
David Samuels is the reporter who interviewed Obama's mental twin Ben Rhodes about Rhodes' creation of "echo chambers" to push the Iran deal and convince people that they were all wrong to think of the extremist Islamist terror state as a threat. In fact, Iran was and is a great Partner in Peace (TM) to the American people!
This is the interview that elicited Ben Rhodes' perfect explanation of how easy it is to change "elite" media opinion overnight -- "they literally know nothing," Rhodes said, so it is very easy to fill their heads with your propaganda. My own elaboration on that: Dummies and ignoramuses often know they're dumb and ignorant, and wish not to be. So if you give them some easy-to-understand (but completely false) slogans to fill that void, they will Seize and Pounce on those slogans uncritically. They felt intellectually empty and socially awkward; now you've empowered them with easy-to-understand propaganda that makes them feel In the Know and Part of the In Crowd.
Because you're providing them a huge service -- you're allowing them to no longer feel stupid and ignorant. And they will reward you by repeating your mantras and propagandas with the fervor of a cultist.
David Samuels now revisits those "echo chambers" deranging American thought and manufacturing "public opinion" out of nothing.
The whole article is worth reading. It's terrific.
I'll just excerpt the conclusory parts. But he builds up to this by noting, for example, how American "elite" opinion turned on Iran overnight.
How did that happen? How did the so-called "elites" go to bed knowing that Iran was a jihadist terror state one night and wake up the next morning knowing with even more passion that Iran was a friend to the United States and an important Partner in Peace (TM)?
So, as I said, read the whole thing over the weekend, but for now, here are the money paragraphs.
He describes this as a revolution in communications -- specifically the communication of mass propaganda -- as important as any of the major developments in mass media, like the telegraph or even the printing press.
The collapse of the 20th-century media pyramid on which Lippmann's assumptions rested, and its rapid replacement by monopoly social media platforms, made it possible for the Obama White House to sell policy--and reconfigure social attitudes and prejudices--in new ways. In fact, as Obama's chief speechwriter and national security aide Ben Rhodes, a fiction writer by vocation, argued to me more than once in our conversations, the collapse of the world of print left Obama with little choice but to forge a new reality online.When I wrote about Rhodes' ambitious program to sell the Iran deal, I advanced the term "echo chambers" to describe the process by which the White House and its wider penumbra of think tanks and NGOs generated an entirely new class of experts who credentialed each other on social media in order to advance assertions that would formerly have been seen as marginal or not credible, thereby overwhelming the efforts of traditional subject-area gatekeepers and reporters to keep government spokespeople honest. In constructing these echo chambers, the White House created feedback loops that could be gamed out in advance by clever White House aides, thereby influencing and controlling the perceptions of reporters, editors and congressional staffers, and the elusive currents of "public opinion" they attempted to follow. If you saw how the game worked from the inside, you understood that the new common wisdom was not a true "reflection" of what anyone in particular necessarily believed, but rather the deliberate creation of a small class of operatives who used new technologies to create and control larger narratives that they messaged to target audiences on digital platforms, and which often presented themselves to their targets as their own naturally occurring thoughts and feelings, which they would then share with people like themselves.
...
What I did not imagine at the time was that Obama's successor in the White House would not be Hillary Clinton but Donald Trump. Nor did I foresee that Trump would himself become the target of a messaging campaign that would make full use of the machine that Obama had built, along with elements of the American security state. Being physically inside the White House, it turned out, was a mere detail of power; even more substantial power lay in controlling the digital switchboard that Obama had built, and which it turned out he still controlled.During the Trump years, Obama used the tools of the digital age to craft an entirely new type of power center for himself, one that revolved around his unique position as the titular, though pointedly never-named, head of a Democratic Party that he succeeded in refashioning in his own image--and which, after Hillary's loss, had officially supplanted the "centrist" Clinton neoliberal machine of the 1990s. The Obama Democratic Party (ODP) was a kind of balancing mechanism between the power and money of the Silicon Valley oligarchs and their New York bankers; the interests of bureaucratic and professional elites who shuttled between the banks and tech companies and the work of bureaucratic oversight; the ODP's own sectarian constituencies, which were divided into racial and ethnic categories like "POC," "MENA," and "Latinx," whose bizarre bureaucratic nomenclature signaled their inherent existence as top-down containers for the party's new-age spoils system; and the world of billionaire-funded NGOs that provided foot-soldiers and enforcers for the party's efforts at social transformation.
It was the entirety of this apparatus, not just the ability to fashion clever or impactful tweets, that constituted the party's new form of power. But control over digital platforms, and what appeared on those platforms, was a key element in signaling and exercising that power. The Hunter Biden laptop story, in which party operatives shanghaied 51 former high U.S. government intelligence and security officials to sign a letter that all but declared the laptop to be a fake, and part of a Russian disinformation plot--when most of those officials had very strong reasons to know or believe that the laptop and its contents were real--showed how the system worked. That letter was then used as the basis for restricting and banning factual reports about the laptop and its contents from digital platforms, with the implication that allowing readers to access those reports might be the basis for a future accusation of a crime. None of this censorship was official, of course: Trump was in the White House, not Obama or Biden. What that demonstrated was that the real power, including the power to control functions of the state, lay elsewhere.
Even more unusual, and alarming, was what followed Trump's defeat in 2020. With the Democrats back in power, the new messaging apparatus could now formally include not just social and institutional pressure but the enforcement arms of the federal bureaucracy, from the Justice Department to the FBI to the SEC. As the machine ramped up, censoring dissenting opinions on everything from COVID, to DEI programs, to police conduct, to the prevalence and the effects of hormone therapies and surgeries on youth, large numbers of people began feeling pressured by an external force that they couldn't always name; even greater numbers of people fell silent. In effect, large-scale changes in American mores and behavior were being legislated outside the familiar institutions and processes of representative democracy, through top-down social pressure machinery backed in many cases by the threat of law enforcement or federal action, in what soon became known as a "whole of society" effort.
At every turn over the next four years, it was like a fever was spreading, and no one was immune. Spouses, children, colleagues, and supervisors at work began reciting, with the force of true believers, slogans they had only learned last week, and that they were very often powerless to provide the slightest real-world evidence for. These sudden, sometimes overnight, appearances of beliefs, phrases, tics, looked a lot like the mass social contagions of the 1950s--one episode after another of rapid-onset political enlightenment replacing the appearance of dance crazes or Hula-Hoops.
Just as in those commercially fed crazes, there was nothing accidental, mystical or organic about these new thought-viruses. Catchphrases like "defund the police," "structural racism," "white privilege," "children don't belong in cages," "assigned gender" or "stop the genocide in Gaza" would emerge and marinate in meme-generating pools like the academy or activist organizations, and then jump the fence--or be fed--into niche groups and threads on Twitter or Reddit. If they gained traction in those spaces, they would be adopted by constituencies and players higher up in the Democratic Party hierarchy, who used their control of larger messaging verticals on social media platforms to advance or suppress stories around these topics and phrases, and who would then treat these formerly fringe positions as public markers for what all "decent people" must universally believe; those who objected or stood in the way were portrayed as troglodytes and bigots. From there, causes could be messaged into reality by state and federal bureaucrats, NGOs, and large corporations, who flew banners, put signs on their bathrooms, gave new days off from work, and brought in freshly minted consultants to provide "trainings" for workers--all without any kind of formal legislative process or vote or backing by any significant number of voters.
What mattered here was no longer Lippmann's version of "public opinion," rooted in the mass audiences of radio and later television, which was assumed to correlate to the current or future preferences of large numbers of voters--thereby assuring, on a metaphoric level at least, the continuation of 19th-century ideas of American democracy, with its deliberate balance of popular and representational elements in turn mirroring the thrust of the Founders' design. Rather, the newly minted digital variant of "public opinion" was rooted in the algorithms that determine how fads spread on social media, in which mass multiplied by speed equals momentum--speed being the key variable. The result was a fast-moving mirror world that necessarily privileges the opinions and beliefs of the self-appointed vanguard who control the machinery, and could therefore generate the velocity required to change the appearance of "what people believe" overnight.
The unspoken agreements that obscured the way this social messaging apparatus worked--including Obama's role in directing the entire system from above--and how it came to supplant the normal relationships between public opinion and legislative process that generations of Americans had learned from their 20th-century poli-sci textbooks, made it easy to dismiss anyone who suggested that Joe Biden was visibly senile; that the American system of government, including its constitutional protections for individual liberties and its historical system of checks and balances, was going off the rails; that there was something visibly unhealthy about the merger of monopoly tech companies and national security agencies with the press that threatened the ability of Americans to speak and think freely; or that America's large cultural systems, from education, to science and medicine, to the production of movies and books, were all visibly failing, as they fell under the control of this new apparatus. Millions of Americans began feeling increasingly exhausted by the effort involved in maintaining parallel thought-worlds in which they expressed degrees of fealty to the new order in the hope of keeping their jobs and avoiding being singled out for ostracism and punishment, while at the same time being privately baffled or aghast by the absence of any persuasive logic behind the changes they saw--from the breakdown of law and order in major cities, to the fentanyl epidemic, to the surge of perhaps 20 million unvetted illegal immigrants across the U.S. border, to widespread gender dysphoria among teenage girls, to sudden and shocking declines in public health, life expectancy, and birth rates.
Until the fever broke.
He then talks about Obama's role in this. Obama was not the creator of this system of public derangement -- he was the first product it sold.
The originator of this new style of Astroturf propaganda was Obama's mentor, the creepy David Axelrod. The neomarxist social media monopolies just allowed him to bring it to planetary scale through the use of algorithms and artificial intelligence.
Continue reading
LOL: MSNBC Reportedly Demands That Joy Reid, Stephanie Ruhle Take Pay Cuts to Keep Their Jobs
—Ace
MSNBC's Joy Reid and Stephanie Ruhle will reportedly need to take a pay cut if they want to remain in their anchor chairs as the struggling cable network continues to cut costs.The left-leaning news channel -- which recently gave star anchor Rachel Maddow a $5 million-a-year haircut from her annual $30 million haul -- has been negotiating with Reid and Ruhle on new deals at reduced salaries, according to the Ankler newsletter.
The controversial Reid is believed to be earning $3 million a year to host her nightly 8 p.m. show, "The ReidOut," according to the Washington Free Beacon.
Reid, who has been with the network since 2011 and in primetime since 2020, recently raised hackles again with a pre-Thanksgiving rant in which she accused Republicans of worshiping Donald Trump "instead of Jesus."
Ruhle, host of "The 11th Hour" at 11 p.m. weeknights, is thought to make $2 million a year, the Free Beacon reported.
She has also been a frequent Trump basher but recently praised him for being more accessible to the press than President Biden. Ruhle revealed she was able to contact Trump on his cellphone -- though he told her to "go f--k myself" when she asked for an interview, she quipped.
A third prominent host, Jonathan Lemire -- who was elevated this month to co-host "Morning Joe" from anchoring "Way Too Early" -- has also been offered a new contract at a reduced salary, the Ankler reported.
An MSNBC spokesperson reached by The Post said the network would not comment on personnel matters.
...
The reported lowball offers follow an exclusive story by The Post that staffers at MSNBC's headquarters at 30 Rock are in a panic over looming layoffs after parent company Comcast announced plans to spin off its cable properties.
The upheaval has led to reports that MSNBC president Rashida Jones is considering leaving the network after Trump is sworn in on Jan. 20.
A spokesperson for Jones denied she is leaving.
Meanwhile, MSNBC's primetime ratings continue to nosedive, tanking more than 60% since last month's historic election victory by Trump. It fell behind ratings-challenged CNN in the coveted 25-to-54 demographic for the year in Total Day viewers.
Lower than CNN? Ouch, that's terrible.
Meanwhile, ABC also gave a new contract to professional defamation agent George Stephanopolous, but also with a big cut.
And they only did that, per reports, to avoid having "his blood on their hands."
In other words: They really wanted to fire him but thought the optics and backlash from fellow "Resistance journalist" Marxists would be too great.
Disney renews George Stephanopoulos' contract -- with pay cut -- despite $16M Trump settlement because it didn't want 'his blood on their hands': source
Disney decided to renew ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos' contract -- despite having to fork over a $16 million legal settlement -- because they didn't want "his blood on their hands," The Post has learned.Stephanopoulos, who hosts "This Week" and is a co-anchor on "Good Morning America," was handed a multi-year deal -- though he took a pay cut from his lofty $20 million annual salary, sources said.
"No one wants a talent mess on their hands," one longtime network executive told The Post. "No one wants an angry George Stephanopoulos loose in the world. No one wants to humiliate George by firing him or to have his blood on their hands."
..."George is well-liked by the liberal-elite in Hollywood and The Hamptons. He's friends with Jerry Seinfeld, Michael J Fox and Netflix boss Ted Sarandos," the source said, adding that he operates in the same "bubble" as left-leaning Disney top brass.
"George has carefully cultivated a relationship with [Disney CEO] Bob Iger and board members. He remains a respected member of the Disney family."
But inside the halls of ABC News, staffers remain "livid" over Iger's decision to stand by Stephanopoulos and cave to Trump.
"They paid off Trump for a mistake that George made. How many jobs could that $16 million have saved?" said a second network source, citing a fresh round of layoffs at the network.
"I think people are angry at the humiliation of the settlement with Trump. People are angry with George's unforced errors and his defiance and that he's rewarded for his mistakes with another lucrative contract even if his salary has been cut," the first source said.
The source said that even if the journalist is well-regarded by top brass, he isn't a favorite among staffers.
Sources said Stephanopoulos is a "loner" who doesn't play well with others.
They noted that Stephanopoulos won't take part in election night coverage or appear on air with "ABC World News Tonight" anchor David Muir.
"Most great anchors are larger than life. George has always been smaller than life. And this humiliating settlement has made him even smaller," the network exec said.
He is smaller than life. That's true.
Which might be why he won't appear on camera in a group setting. His tiny manlet body would be exposed.
Slimmed-Down Version of CR Fails, With 38 Republicans Voting Against It
—Ace
I forgot that the House Speaker always must court Democrat votes for these bills because there is a bloc of Republicans who will not vote for any CR that raises the debt ceiling.
So Republicans defeated the more Republican version of the bill.
But 38 Republicans voted against the bill. That's more than the 15-20 who just refuse to vote for any budget.
I think some Republicans really want that pay raise and really want that Democrat spending.
A government spending bill supported by President-elect Donald Trump failed to pass the House of Representatives on Thursday night, intensifying concerns of a partial shutdown. The legislation required a two-thirds majority but fell short with a vote of 174-235. Divisions within the GOP and opposition from Democrats left Congress without a clear path forward ahead of the Friday deadline.
Key Details:
The bill, which extended government funding through March 14th and suspended the debt limit until January 2027, was opposed by 38 Republican lawmakers and most Democrats. Only two Democrats crossed party lines to support it.
The proposed legislation included $110 billion in disaster relief aid, covering damage from storms Milton and Helene, and funds to rebuild Baltimore's Francis Scott Key Bridge. However, it omitted provisions like a pay raise for Congress and a revitalization plan for Washington, D.C.'s RFK Stadium.
A fringe group of Republicans defied the president-elect and rejected the bill, including Texas Rep. Chip Roy, Tennessee Rep. Andy Ogles, and Montana Rep. Matt Rosendale.
Diving Deeper:
The House's rejection of Speaker Mike Johnson's Plan B budget proposal leaves Congress scrambling to avoid a government shutdown set to begin at 11:59 p.m. Friday. The failure of the measure highlights deep divisions within the House, as Democrats and conservative Republicans united in opposition to the plan.
Johnson's proposal, unveiled hours before the vote, sought to fund the government at current levels through March 14, 2024, while suspending the debt limit for two years. It also included $100 billion in disaster relief and $10 billion for farmers. However, these provisions failed to garner necessary support.
Democrats, led by Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, dismissed the plan outright. "This proposal is laughable and unserious," Jeffries said, reflecting his caucus's frustration over what they see as inadequate responses to pressing issues. During a Democratic caucus meeting, lawmakers were reportedly heard chanting, "Hell no."
Republicans also took issue with the debt limit suspension. Rep. Chip Roy, a member of the House Freedom Caucus, criticized the plan on social media, stating, "More debt. More government. Increasing the Credit Card $4 trillion with ZERO spending restraint and cuts. HARD NO."
THE MORNING RANT: EV Fire in Parking Garage Causes Terrifying Nighttime Rescues at a Chattanooga, TN Apartment Building
—Buck Throckmorton
As cool as the “new urban” lifestyle sounds, with dining and entertainment options within blocks of your condo/loft, there have always been negatives. These include the hassle factor of multi-story apartment living, shared walls, street noise, etc. There’s now a new negative – the risk of a runaway thermal fire in the parking garage underneath the building you live in.
Some residents of an apartment building in a hip Chattanooga neighborhood had a terrifying night recently when an electric vehicle parked in the building’s garage spontaneously erupted in flames during the wee hours of the night.
“Electric vehicle started major apartment fire in Chattanooga” [WTVC – 12/17/2024]
Five people were hospitalized.
Per the Chattanooga Fire Department, “Residents were giving important information to the police, and officers were relaying those details to the crews conducting searches and making rescues. You can also see and hear the compassion the first responders have on the scene as they help people fleeing their smoke-filled homes in the middle of the night.”
Hook and ladder units had to be employed by the fire department to rescue some residents.
Heavy smoke made its way into the building where some residents needed assistance to escape. Some residents had to evacuate by climbing down an aerial ladder from multiple stories up. Residents expressed their gratitude for the firefighters response.
Obviously, the fire department’s primary concern was rescuing residents before they succumbed to the smoke that had engulfed the building. But there was also a raging inferno down below in the garage, as the burning EV began to ignite adjacent vehicles.
"There were multiple vehicles on fire," said Lindsey Rogers with the Chattanooga Fire Department. "The smoke from the vehicle fires made its way throughout the building, so we had half of our crews in the sub-level garage working to extinguish those car fires. We had the other half of our crews working to do multiple rescues."
The electric vehicle that started the fire was determined to be a Kia EV. Following the awful night that the residents endured, almost all of them soon learned that their cars had been damaged too.
Two other vehicles next to the EV burned, and most of the cars in the garage suffered heat damage, in the early morning hours of November 22nd. Fire officials identified the car that caught fire as a Kia.
The greatest peril in a multi-family building is fire. That risk has now been compounded by the fact that a trendy EV parked in an apartment’s garage might spontaneously erupt into an unextinguishable inferno at any time.
I know that I will be receiving the usual emails reminding me that there are more fires involving gasoline-powered (“ICE”) cars than from EVs. Of course there are, because there are so many more ICE cars on the road than EVs, and when ICE cars get in wrecks, the gasoline sometimes combusts.
But ICE cars just don’t spontaneously burst into flames like EVs do. There is essentially no risk that a parked ICE car in a garage will burst into flames, while there is a very real, greater-than-zero risk that an EV will spontaneously combust, and cause tremendous damage to everything around it. And above it.
For safety reasons and for insurance purposes, buildings with covered parking garages really need to start considering a ban on EVs.
[buck.throckmorton at protonmail dot com]
The Morning Report — 12/20/24
—J.J. Sefton
Good morning kids. So, the Trump-supported replacement stopgap spending bill, while two-thirds the page count of the initial trichinosis-infested disaster, was still chock full o'dreck. Wetting your collective beaks at the taxpayers' expense is one thing, but Ho. Lee. Fook. This is just beyond belief. The arms should be ripped from the sockets of the degenerate criminals who are actually writing these bills and used to beat the Congress-momzers to death with for the treasonous act of not reading and comprehending what they are trying to force down our throats.
Funding Bill Includes Cash For a DOZEN Biolabs to ‘Research’/Engineer New Viruses . . It’s unclear whether the final bill will include the same provisions.
Well, we know the Democrats will likely fight tooth and nail for it, because as the author notes:
. . . the government has proven it cannot be trusted to conduct this research without releasing powerful bioweapons that it will later use as a pretext to roll out experimental pharmaceutical products for windfall profits and to enact unprecedented social control measures in the form of lockdowns, mandates, etc.
And because as we are all well aware, too many globalist RINOs are getting spitroasted by Big Pharma and the Chi-Coms or otherwise can't be bothered to actually read word for word hundreds of pages of a bill too close to a holiday or cocktail hour.
Ironically, it was the Dems who helped kill the replacement bill in an effort to ding Johnson as well as Trump and then cast the blame for the government shutdown which will have essentially zero effect on the average citizen despite what mouth breathing inbred hacks like Joe Scarborough and his bimbo concubine Mitzi Baryshnikov declare as they jack off Al Sharpton under the MSNSDAP anchor desk.
Meanwhile, in another part of the forest:
An 18-year-old freshman at George Mason University in Virginia was arrested Tuesday for allegedly plotting a mass casualty attack on Israel’s general consulate in New York City, which he described as “a goldmine of targets,” according to a report.Abdullah Ezzeldin Taha Mohamed Hassan, an Egyptian national, was charged with one count of demonstrating how to manufacture an explosive with intent to murder internationally protected persons after allegedly instructing an undercover FBI agent in November to target the consulate with explosives, the Washington Post reported Thursday.
“Two options: lay havoc on them with an assault rifle or detonate a TATP [suicide] vest in the midst of them,” Hassan allegedly told the agent posing as a terrorist sympathizer on Nov. 27, prosecutors alleged in court documents obtained by the outlet.
Hassan, who had been facing deportation proceedings, was arrested by the FBI in Falls Church and subsequently banned from campus, according to the report.
Frankly, I'm rather surprised the FBI had the time and resources, let alone the will, to catch this freak, considering that at least for the past four years they've been preoccupied with creating false flag insurrections and railroading innocent Americans for the high crime of believing the first amendment applied to them, be it at the Capitol where they were entrapped in a sting operation, or at school board meetings or praying in front of abortion abattoirs.
Back in the halcyon days of the late 60s, when college students were in an hallucinogenic induced haze, the popular expression on campus was "Bring the War Home!" Here we are nearly 60 years later and far too many of those students are in our government, the C-suites and most disastrously Academia raping the minds and in many cases bodies of American children, from pre-school through post-graduate.
While bring the war home at the time meant Vietnam, and since 10/7/23 the Gaza pogrom against Israel and really world Jewry, in point of fact, as I have elucidated in my writings and podcast ravings the War is not only home but is about the very existence and nature of our home in the first place:
Americans reacted with horror this week to a new poll that found young voters evenly divided on the righteousness of Luigi Mangione’s cold-blooded assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.To me, the result was no surprise: I’m seeing far worse on my Ivy League campus every day — the logical result of the morality crisis running rampant throughout “elite” academia and among many of my generation.
The Emerson College poll found 41% of voters age 18 to 29 saw Thompson’s murder as “acceptable,” while just 40% found it somewhat or completely “unacceptable.”
But here at Princeton, a poll of nearly 1,500 students on the Fizz social network revealed that 25% found Mangione’s action “completely justified,” with another 22% saying Thompson’s death was “deserved.”
Only 13% managed to say the killer was purely “in the wrong.”
. . . Of course, leftist college students — particularly Ivy Leaguers — have for generations fancied themselves revolutionaries.
But this outright glorification of violence marks a significant escalation.
And I believe I know why. To far-left young Americans, on any given issue, the world is divided into two buckets: oppressor and oppressed.
There is little room for nuance, and next to none for negotiation.
I’ve seen this phenomenon firsthand in my role as president of Princeton’s premier pro-Israel student organization. . .
. . . And while this oppressor-oppressed dynamic is not new, the extent of its application absolutely is.
Throughout the West, anti-Israel protesters have chanted for the past year that “all resistance is justified.” In New York City, posters and stickers have declared “rape is resistance.”
Now the same rationale is being applied to justify Brian Thompson’s murder.
In the current climate, many people my age see Mangione as a resistor, something of a martyr, while capitalist CEOs like Thompson are framed as the unquestionable oppressors.
Just as my fellow Princeton student dismissed the notion of conversing with someone like me, Brian Thompson, as a member of the class of oppression, was not entitled to a conversation.
Instead, he was condemned without trial, his murder rationalized as resistance by a privileged young person with two Ivy League degrees.
That so many students and other young people are failing this basic moral test is a searing indictment of our education system and “elite” institutions. . .
. . . This is not just a campus problem, but one with far-reaching consequences.
The institutions tasked with educating our (supposedly) brightest minds have instead become breeding grounds for moral equivocation.
Amen. A well-written piece. Not only that, but it gives those who label themselves as "elite" the absolute moral authority to invoke the credo of "By Any Means Necessary" in the eradication of anyone and anything they view as a threat to that authority, which they label as EVIL.
Hence, the planned terrorist attack, the cold blooded assassination of UHC CEO Thompson, the Madison school shooting and all the other ignored or explained-away attacks against anyone and anything that is non-Leftist/Democrat aligned or approved, this of course in diametric opposition to the righteous acquittal of Daniel Penny.
Beyond the sick and twisted mindset of Leftists there is sadly a concomitant moral vacuum among those who are in positions of power who should know better yet go along to get along or otherwise equivocate outcomes and make excuses to do the wrong thing. I'm looking at people like John Roberts who in one egregious and notorious instance rather than doing the right thing and declaring the Obamacare mandate unconstitutional, supposedly feared a violent backlash and instead turned the Constitution he swore on a Bible to preserve, protect and defend on its ear by rewriting the law to make it kosher instead of sending it back to the House to be rewritten and then voted on.
It's why I'm rather amazed that Daniel Penny was exonerated and why I think Derek Chauvin doesn't stand a chance. Not only because the autopsy on the criminal bastard child of LBJ's Great Society aka George Floyd, would prove Chauvin's innocence, but because doing so would not merely touch off yet another wave of violence, arson and murder over the specious blood libel of America as a racist white-supremacist society, but because in freeing Chauvin it would deal a major, if not death blow to said blood libel. And that is too powerful a weapon that the Marxist bastard Left bitterly cling to in order to maintain and attain even more political power.
And Trump's victory was due in no small part with disaffected black and other minority Democrats for once seeing and feeling the disaster of who and what they vote for directly affecting them. Will it last, can it last will Trump build on that? It depends if you see things as half-full or half-empty.
If we can take back the schools, stop further brainwashing and then deprogram the last few generations of American youth, we have a shot at salvation.
Lastly, a shout-out and thank you for your continued support in hitting our tip jar. It truly is appreciated more than you can know. Have a great weekend!
- ABOVE THE FOLD, BREAKING, NOTEWORTHY
- Given that he deliberately allowed Iran to flood America with deadly drugs and grow its nuclear program, it’s easy to argue that he is. (The entire Democrat party, going back to 1860 - jjs)
Is Barack Obama Guilty of Mass Murder and Treason?
- Robert Spencer: Waiting for the sign that the Dems have learned one single thing from the election. (the Universe will have ended by then, sir - jjs)
Harris Aide: Dems Need More Spox Like the Activist Who Said ‘America Deserved 9/11’
- The legacy media has lost all ability to influence the public. With Trump's win, a concerted effort to censor alternative media and citizen journalists will intensify.
Trump Wins—and the Censorship Begins
Continue reading
Daily Tech News 20 December 2024
—Pixy Misa
Top Story- Oh yeah, don't use SMS for two-factor authentication either. (Gizmodo)
It was never ideal since your phone number could get SIM-swapped without you knowing, but now that the entire phone network has been hacked it's not very useful at all.
- Microsoft promises meanwhile to keep nagging you to use passkeys rather than passwords online. (The Register)
A passkey lets you log in to a website without the tedious logging in part, so long as you have already logged in to your device. This is actually fairly secure because the passkey consists of two parts - you have one part and the website has the other - and nobody can steal your password from the website and hack your account because effectively they only have half the password.
But if they hack your laptop, you're hosed. Though that is true regardless.
Continue reading
Finger Lickin' Good ONT
—WeirdDave
Welcome to the Thursday ONT. I have a...strange urge to go into this building.
Continue reading
Interplanetary Cafe
—Ace
A sunset... on Mars
Earth, as seen from Mars.
Husky with an Italian accent.
This is why we can't have nice things.
The most beautiful and professional grade-school Christmas pageant ever.
Dog is not a fan of Frosty. Is anybody? I hated Frosty. Even as a kid, when I was willing to entertain the possibility of Santa, elves, and flying reindeer, I understood that Frosty was fake and made-up nonsense.
Mama dog is so happy and proud of her puppies.
Teaching cats to shake hands.
Cats want to be the bride at every wedding and the Savior in every manger.
Outstanding junior tree decorator.
Undercover Boss: Farm Edition.
Settling in for a long winter's nap.
Enjoy life like this dog enjoys two open windows.
Continue reading
After Trump's Victory, Biden's Mentally Ill State Department Sent Out Memos Advising Employees to Seek Solace in "Reflection Rooms" and Oh Yeah All-Gender Bathrooms Too
—Ace
Do you not feel confident that strong, wise, mentally-healthy people are conducting diplomacy on your behalf?
Adam Kredo
Two weeks after President-elect Donald Trump's November election victory, the Biden-Harris State Department issued an internal diplomatic cable that touted sweeping diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives across the agency, including dedicated "reflection rooms" and "all-gender restrooms" at American embassies abroad.The Nov. 19 cable, issued by outgoing secretary of state Antony Blinken and reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon, is part of a larger Biden administration bid to embed DEI initiatives within the federal government before Trump takes office next year.
In some cases, that's meant rebranding job titles "promoting Diversity, Equity and Inclusion" in an attempt to make them less noticeable to Trump, the Washington Post reported. The State Department's cable, however, is open in its embrace of DEI.
Titled, "Developing a More Inclusive and Accessible Work Environment," the internal message "outlines efforts the Department is taking, in both domestic and overseas locations, to create workplaces that are welcoming, inclusive, and accessible to all employees and visitors." It references Blinken's so-called Modernization Agenda, which it says "calls for a work environment that is resilient, agile, secure, and inclusive."
...
The cable also focuses on employee bathroom habits.
The State Department is "identifying more inclusive options for employees and visitors who would like more privacy," according to the message, which notes that "employees and family members and guests visiting Posts abroad can access men's or women's restrooms and single-use (all-gender) restrooms (as available) and other facilities that align with their gender identity."
"Most" of the agency's office buildings, the cable says, "include single-occupant restrooms." Such restrooms "may also benefit people of diverse faiths by providing a private place for ritual washing and a safe environment for a wide range of employees and visitors, including transgender and non-binary individuals."
...
Under President Joe Biden, the State Department has championed DEI initiatives overseas, pumping around $80 million into programs meant to advance "racial equity" and prevent "gender and sexuality discrimination." The agency has also held "internal staff sessions and meetings" on how to preserve DEI policies once Trump takes office, according to Simon Hankinson, a former Foreign Service officer who now serves as a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation.
"Some staff are concerned with how to preserve DEI, and there are suggestions that they could keep the essence of it by renaming and keeping the same dedicated staff with new titles," Hankinson said. "Some employees are not willing to let what they see as 'progress' go, even if the order comes down."
As Dirty Harry would say: "Swell."
WSJ, NYT Agree: Biden Was In Obvious Cognitive Decline Not Just at the End But For His Entire Term as Fake President
—Ace
Yesterday, the New York Times -- which of course insisted that Biden was doing Chinese Human Pyramid Gymnastics when the cameras weren't on him up until his debate meltdown -- admitted that Biden was in a degraded mental condition for a long time.
Though they're very careful to say that while he couldn't possibly serve another term, his skill at doing Chinese Human Pyramid Gymnastics made him perfectly capable of serving out his current term.
A Weary Biden Heads for the Exit Still stinging from the election, President Biden is pushing for his final priorities but has absented himself from the national conversation about Donald Trump after warning repeatedly that he was a threat to American democracy.
It was a long day in Angola. President Biden had already visited a port facility bracketed with cranes and toured a factory filled with conveyor belts. So by the time he sat down at a large wooden circular table in a warm, stuffy room with African leaders, he put his head in his hand and briefly closed his eyes as the speeches droned on.Flying across the world would have tired even a president younger than 82. But the point, as he saw it, was that he came. He traveled thousands of miles to highlight a new U.S.-backed railway that could transform the economies of Africa and supply resources for America.
Of course it's always about trains with Joey Choo-Choo.
He came. He did not have to. He insisted on it and was proud to be the first president to come.This is the twilight of Mr. Biden's presidency, the final days of the final chapter of an epic half-century political journey that has had more than its share of twists and turns. Time is catching up with Mr. Biden. He looks a little older and a little slower with each passing day.
It's incredible that the NYT thinks this is brave reporting.
Here comes the "aides say he's totally sharp" again:
Aides say he remains plenty sharp in the Situation Room, calling world leaders to broker a cease-fire in Lebanon or deal with the chaos of Syria's rebellion. But it is hard to imagine that he seriously thought he could do the world's most stressful job for another four years.
See, there you go: The media told you the truth both times. When it told you Biden was cognitively fit as a fiddle, it was telling you the truth. He can do the job of president right now.
But on January 20th, he will suddenly degrade precipitously. So they were also telling the truth when they said (after Democrat billionaire donors told them to say it) that Biden must not be the candidate in 2024.
They're always telling the truth, Bigots. You're the ones who always lie.
...Determined to finish on a high note and shape his legacy as a consequential president, Mr. Biden wants to "sprint to the finish line" in these final weeks, as his chief of staff, Jeffrey D. Zients, put it. He is checking a few last boxes on his presidential bucket list. Angola? Check. A visit to the Amazon rainforest, another presidential first? Check.
The only way Biden could sprint to the finish line is if you drew the finish line on the street and dropped him to "sprint" from a 30 story building.
The biggest box left is a cease-fire in Gaza and if he manages that, it would be a validating triumph for a departing president.
LOL. Except everyone knows that would be due to Hamas wanting to placate the incoming president.
Otherwise, he is wrapping up his time in office by claiming credit for the healthy economy that he is turning over to his ungrateful successor and by getting money previously approved by Congress out the door for roads and bridges at home and arms for Ukraine abroad.
Inflation remains close to 3% and we just found out that almost all the jobs "created" over the past year were figments of the Bureau of Labor Statistics' very liberal imagination.
But it's a super healthy economy.
...Mr. Biden has absented himself from the debate convulsing the country. After warning again and again that Mr. Trump posed an existential threat to American democracy, he has now gone silent on the matter and even aides decline to answer questions on whether the incoming president is still a danger. A traditionalist to his bones, Mr. Biden has opted for the grace and reticence he believes are befitting the departing president of a defeated party, even as the incoming president threatens to imprison opponents and tries to install conspiracy-minded acolytes in positions of power.
They just never acknowledge that Biden has been doing what they claim Trump is "threatening."
Even when pushing for his priorities, Mr. Biden has found it hard to break through. During his visit to the Amazon rainforest last month, his fragility appeared painfully clear to those traveling with him.
And all of this just happened. Before the NYT acknowledged this fragility, all videos showing him shuffling around in confusion were Cheapfakes.
After speaking for seven minutes on a day of draining humidity, a blue shirt hanging loosely over his frame, he turned to slowly shuffle away down a dirt path as several people in the audience not used to seeing him up close said they held their breath, worried that he would trip. (Aides said his gait was no more unsteady than usual.)During an arrival ceremony on his trip to Angola this month, on the day after a long, tiring transoceanic flight that would have taxed any octogenarian, President João Lourenço suddenly clutched Mr. Biden's arm to help guide him up a step.
When Mr. Biden visited the National Museum of Slavery that afternoon, he did not actually enter the main building to view the exhibitions; instead, artifacts were brought outside to show him, which two people familiar with the planning attributed to fear that the steep stairs would be too much of a challenge. (The White House denied that the stairs were a concern and said he was not brought inside for scheduling and logistical reasons.)
So there, the NYT admits what we all saw on videotape.
Now, it's right back to insisting that when the cameras aren't on him, he's doing Chinese Human Pyramid Gymnastics routines.
In meetings at the White House, aides said, he is likewise still astute, still dictating specific actions and still editing speeches to suit his preferences. He made calls to other world leaders as part of a successful effort to broker a cease-fire to stop the war in Lebanon and again to consult on the aftermath of the fall of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria.At a ceremony honoring the Special Olympics last week, he struck some guests as fully engaged. "He seemed fine," said Elaine Kamarck, a longtime Democratic National Committee member who attended. "To my amazement, he stayed through the whole dinner. We all thought maybe he would disappear, but no, he sat down, he ate with everybody, he stayed through all of dinner. And he seemed just fine."
Still, he grew emotional at one point during the ceremony. At this time of year, friends say, Mr. Biden can become a little seasonally depressed, remembering the 1972 car accident that killed his first wife and daughter shortly before Christmas.
Biden has Schrodinger's Senility -- he only is senile when he's being observed.
I think the NYT heard that the WSJ was preparing this piece and so rushed out their own cover-up version of the story to consume all the oxygen in the room.
But here's the real story: The Biden White House frequently observed Biden "blanking out" during briefings and scripted even their cabinet meetings so that the Secretaries wouldn't see Biden showing obvious senility.
How the White House Functioned With a Diminished Biden in Charge Aides kept meetings short and controlled access, top advisers acted as go-betweens and public interactions became more scripted. The administration denied Biden has declined.During the 2020 presidential primary, Jill Biden campaigned so extensively across Iowa that she held events in more counties than her husband--a fact her press secretary at the time, Michael LaRosa, touted to a local reporter.
His superior in the Biden campaign quickly chided him. As the three rode in a minivan through the state's cornfields, Anthony Bernal, then a deputy campaign manager and chief of staff to Jill Biden, pressed LaRosa to contact the reporter again and play down any comparison in campaign appearances between Joe Biden, then 77, and his wife, who is eight years his junior. Her energetic schedule only highlighted her husband's more plodding pace, LaRosa recalls being told.
The message from Biden's team was clear. "The more you talk her up, the more you make him look bad," LaRosa said.
The small correction foreshadowed how Biden's closest aides and advisers would manage the limitations of the oldest president in U.S. history during his four years in office.
To adapt the White House around the needs of a diminished leader, they told visitors to keep meetings focused. Interactions with senior Democratic lawmakers and some cabinet members--including powerful secretaries such as Defense's Lloyd Austin and Treasury's Janet Yellen--were infrequent or grew less frequent. Some legislative leaders had a hard time getting the president's ear at key moments, including ahead of the U.S.'s disastrous pullout from Afghanistan.Senior advisers were often put into roles that some administration officials and lawmakers thought Biden should occupy, with people such as National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, senior counselor Steve Ricchetti and National Economic Council head Lael Brainard and her predecessor frequently in the position of being go-betweens for the president.
Press aides who compiled packages of news clips for Biden were told by senior staff to exclude negative stories about the president. The president wasn't talking to his own pollsters as surveys showed him trailing in the 2024 race.
Presidents always have gatekeepers. But in Biden's case, the walls around him were higher and the controls greater, according to Democratic lawmakers, donors and aides who worked for Biden and other administrations. There were limits over who Biden spoke with, limits on what they said to him and limits around the sources of information he consumed.
Throughout his presidency, a small group of aides stuck close to Biden to assist him, especially when traveling or speaking to the public. "They body him to such a high degree," a person who witnessed it said, adding that the "hand holding" is unlike anything other recent presidents have had.
The word "body" here is used to mean "stick to and support like a 'body man' in politics," who is an aide paid to stay close to the politician and push people out of his way if needed. Basically soft, unarmed versions of bodyguards.
This account of how the White House functioned with an aging leader at the top of its organizational chart is based on interviews with nearly 50 people, including those who participated in or had direct knowledge of the operations.
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"Good Days, Bad Days"
The president's slide has been hard to overlook. While preparing last year for his interview with Robert K. Hur, the special counsel who investigated Biden's handling of classified documents, the president couldn't recall lines that his team discussed with him. At events, aides often repeated instructions to him, such as where to enter or exit a stage, that would be obvious to the average person. Biden's team tapped campaign co-chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg, a Hollywood mogul, to find a voice coach to improve the president's fading warble.
Biden, now 82, has long operated with a tightknit inner circle of advisers. The protective culture inside the White House was intensified because Biden started his presidency at the height of the Covid pandemic. His staff took great care to prevent him from catching the virus by limiting in-person interactions with him. But the shell constructed for the pandemic was never fully taken down, and his advanced age hardened it.
The structure was also designed to prevent Biden, an undisciplined public speaker throughout his half-century political career, from making gaffes or missteps that could damage his image, create political headaches or upset the world order.
The system put Biden at an unusual remove from cabinet secretaries, the chairs of congressional committees and other high-ranking officials. It also insulated him from the scrutiny of the American public.
The strategies to protect Biden largely worked--until June 27, when Biden stood on an Atlanta debate stage with Trump, searching for words and unable to complete his thoughts on live television. Much of the Democratic establishment had accepted the White House line that Biden was able to take the fight to Trump, even in the face of direct evidence to the contrary.
Biden, staffed with advisers since he became a senator at age 30, came to the White House with a small team of fiercely loyal, long-serving aides who knew him and Washington so well that they could be particularly effective proxies. They didn't tolerate criticism of Biden's performance or broader dissent within the Democratic Party, especially when it came to the president's decision to run for a second term.
Yet a sign that the bruising presidential schedule needed to be adjusted for Biden's advanced age had arisen early on--in just the first few months of his term.Administration officials noticed that the president became tired if meetings went long and would make mistakes.
They issued a directive to some powerful lawmakers and allies seeking one-on-one time: The exchanges should be short and focused, according to people who received the message directly from White House aides.
Ideally, the meetings would start later in the day, since Biden has never been at his best first thing in the morning, some of the people said. His staff made these adjustments to limit potential missteps by Biden, the people said. The president, known for long and rambling sessions, at times pushed in the opposite direction, wanting or just taking more time.
The White House denied that his schedule has been altered due to his age.
If the president was having an off day, meetings could be scrapped altogether. On one such occasion, in the spring of 2021, a national security official explained to another aide why a meeting needed to be rescheduled. "He has good days and bad days, and today was a bad day so we're going to address this tomorrow," the former aide recalled the official saying.
The article notes that even high-ranking Congressmen taking a point position on something important to Biden -- like the FISA bill -- were not allowed to speak to Biden directly, but only spoke to his aides. This, of course, was to hide the (open) secret of the fake president's senility.
One lawmaker who did get one-on-one time with Biden noticed that the president lacked stamina and heavily relied on his staff: Sen. Joe Manchin, the West Virginia Democrat-turned-independent who held up chunks of Biden's legislative agenda during the first half of Biden's term. Manchin said the job required a level of energy that he wasn't sure Biden had been able to sustain."I just thought that maybe the president just lost that fight," Manchin said in an interview. "The ability to continue to stay on, just grind it, grind it, grind it."
Instead of Biden directing follow up, Manchin noticed that Biden's staff played a much bigger role driving his agenda than he had experienced in other administrations. Manchin referred to them as the "eager beavers"--a group that included then-White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain. "They were going, 'I'll take care of that,' " Manchin said.
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Interactions between Biden and many of his cabinet members were relatively infrequent and often tightly scripted. At least one cabinet member stopped requesting calls with the president, because it was clear that such requests wouldn't be welcome, a former senior cabinet aide said.
It's a good article. Worth the read.
Chris Cillizza @ChrisCillizza 4h An apology: As a journalist, I should have pushed harder on the very real questions about Joe Biden's physical and mental health as president.I talked about it here:
youtube.com/watch?v=_WQKveT8...Greg Price @greg_price11 1m
Instead of apologizing, it's easier to just say that journalists ran interference for Joe Biden's senility because journalists are liberals who root for Democrats to win and will run the same interference again the next time a Democrat is in the White House.Sean Davis @seanmdav 1h
Interesting that these "apologies" only ever come when there's no longer any political cost to telling inconvenient truths about Democrats.Posted by: andycanuck
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Is Mike Johnson's Speakership in Danger?
—Ace
Henry Rodgers at the Daily Caller suggests it might be.
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson is facing serious blowback from those in his own party for trying to push through a continuing resolution filled with unnecessary spending. Sources on Capitol Hill, including both lawmakers and their staff, told the Caller Johnson may have cost himself the Speaker's job with the poorly-received gambit right before Christmas."Mike Johnson spent a lot of time fundraising off of selfies with President Trump, and then betrayed him right before the inauguration. He'll have to answer for that in January," a senior House Republican staffer told the Caller.
The 1,574-page spending measure will receive votes from both Democrats and Republicans, but Johnson broke several promises in the process of putting forth the bill. Johnson said in September that he has "no intention of going back" to the "terrible tradition" of a Christmas omnibus.
A senior house aide told the Caller that House Republicans have lost trust in Johnson and that it will be hard to recover from.
"It's not a competence or leadership question for some folks now. It's a trust question. That's gonna be tough to come back from," the senior house aide said.
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Johnson also promised that the spending bill would be written by committee leaders in an open process and members would have at least 72 hours to read it before voting, but in reality, the new CR was negotiated behind closed doors by leadership.
"On every important issue this majority has faced, the Speaker has shown himself to be inapt and outsmarted by Biden and Schumer and is too easily willing to surrender," one House Republican lawmaker told the Caller.
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Kentucky Republican Rep. Thomas Massie was the first House Republican to say he would oppose Johnson's bid for Speaker, saying Wednesday: "I'll vote for somebody else." When asked who he would vote for instead he said: "I've got a few in mind. I'm not going to say yet."
"There's a cognitive disconnect among my colleagues who hated Speaker Johnson's CR, but still plan to vote for Speaker Johnson in 2 weeks. That 1557 page bill was a product of the swamp that uniparty Johnson was happy to facilitate. He couldn't understand why we didn't lap it up," Massie tweeted Thursday morning.
Ed Morrissey reports that Johnson has Trump's support.
IF.
Trump says that Johnson can "easily remain Speaker" "IF" he starts acting like a man and not the cringing weakling boy he seems to be.
If's a big word.
From Fox Digital:
President-elect Donald Trump told Fox News Digital that House Speaker Mike Johnson will "easily remain speaker" for the next Congress if he "acts decisively and tough" and eliminates "all of the traps being set by Democrats" in the spending package.Fox News Digital spoke exclusively with the president-elect Thursday morning, just hours after the bipartisan deal to avoid a partial government shutdown was killed.
"Anybody that supports a bill that doesn't take care of the Democrat quicksand known as the debt ceiling should be primaried and disposed of as quickly as possible," Trump told Fox News Digital.
The liberal sellouts of the Republican Party are muttering in anger to themselves. Only their Democrat allies have the guts to complain on-the-record:
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Another One Gone: Neil Cavuto, Censorious Propagandist for Anthony Fauci and Every Other Regime Operative, Announces He's Leaving Fox News After 28 Years (and At Least 12 Years Too Late)
—Ace
Another one I'm happy to see the back of.
Maybe he'll join Chris Wallace in that podcast venture.
Longtime Fox News host Neil Cavuto announced Thursday that he is leaving the network after 28 years.Cavuto, one of the original hosts on Fox News, has hosted his program, "Your World," since the network's launch in 1996 and also hosts "Cavuto Coast to Coast" on the Fox Business Network and "Cavuto Live" on Saturdays. The host's last day at the network is reportedly Thursday, which he intends to announce on his program later in the afternoon, Mediaite first reported.
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Cavuto reportedly rejected the terms of a contract offered by Fox News and ultimately decided to depart the network, despite the network wanting him to stay, according to Mediaite.
That sounds like Fox would allow him to stay -- if he took a pay cut.
His old timeslot will have revolving hosts until Fox picks a replacement.
Below, one of Neil Cavuto's finest moments of Regime "Journalism."
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